2044 Wirt, provisional designation 1950 VE, is a binary[7] Phocaea asteroid and Mars-crosser, approximately 6.7 kilometers in diameter.
The asteroid was discovered on 8 November 1950, by American astronomer Carl Wirtanen at Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton, California, and later named after the discoverer himself.
[3] Wirt is both a member of the main-belt's Phocaea family (701) and a Mars-crossing asteroid, whose orbit crosses that of Mars.
[4] Between 2005 and 2010, several rotational lightcurve were obtained for this asteroid from photometric observations taken by astronomers Donald Pray, Petr Pravec, Peter Kušnirák, Walter Cooney, Rui Goncalves and Raoul Behrend, as well as at the Palomar Transient Factory.
[4] It was named after American astronomer Carl Wirtanen (1910–1990), a discoverer of minor planets and comets, who was a long-time contributor of astrometric observations at Lick Observatory.